Yeah. You can really see that the director of Blood-C is working on this thing.

The animation may not be as good here, and it also doesn’t necessarily have the same style of characterization, but this episode really showed: the horror is uncompromising. Censorship is for wimps and when someone dies, it is in full graphic detail.

The execution in this episode was also quite a bit better here. The thing with this show is that the animation isn’t really impressive. But if the animators need to animate something well, they do it. The dolls completely disappeared after the first half of this episode. And meanwhile, the doll shots in the shop were actually put in context. The rest of the episode made use of a few interesting cuts or camera angles that worked much better. As for the final climax… I’m a bit iffy on the use of music: that could have been better used, but it was such an over the top death that I can’t really think of a track that would have fitted such a scene better.

The classmates in this episode also surprised me by not being annoying. It’s very tempting to just throw in the usual annoying classmates to make the lead character look normal, however this show doesn’t really need to. Things are strange enough for the main character to stand out, so they can actually make for some rather down to earth characters. In particular the dialogue between them was the best so far.

And yeah, the atmosphere in this show works quite well. I really hope that the creators can keep this up for the rest of the series.Rating: ** (Excellent)

17 Responses

I thought the same thing about the characters! Its a high school setting but everything feels so natural, apart from the obvious horror aspect. The characters aren’t stereotypes but aren’t bland either. This is really shaping up to be my favorite for the season.

Class 3 is in their last year of middle school, but yes, it does feel natural. At that age, there are no definite signs of romance, but there are slight interests and curiosities (I think Kouichi was initially curious and charmed by Mei like a moth to fire.)

Not too sure what to make of this series so far. If we can get guaranteed at least 1 kill per ep. than there may be something fun here. The setting is cool, and I don’t mind the characters. The scene at the end was creative and brutal, almost final destination like.

The plot however is another’s biggest weak point. Things are really easy to get. When creeper girl comes around people start to die. Has something to do with: puppets sucking human life force, her death because people were jealous of her and a coverup of sorts, and the Male lead’s mom. This plot is standard horror fair and all these elements are just too obvious. I’ll keep watching but there is definitely better horror out there.

… If you think that’s all the plot is about, you should really keep watching. I actually guessed what was going on in the first half of the book quite well, but after that the plot got better once it finally got rid of IMO useless misdirections but as I see now, they might not be so useless after all. I won’t say I like Another as a horror story but it’s pretty decent in relation to the author’s other books and probably better when speaking in general terms.

@psgels: The reason why Mei is the only real “otaku-cultural” character is that this is not a light novel or manga adaption and Ayatsuji started his writing career back in 1987, so Mei is about the only thing he uses to appeal to a younger/new audience. I do like some of the changes concerning the characters, like Akazawa Izumi playing a more distinct role, which is why seemingly and hopefully they’ll also continue with the changes already apparent in the manga version.

Why is everyone making such a big deal about the ending scene?In my opinion it was too far fetched,I mean come on,can anyone bleed so much with a wimpy accident like that?
And I am not with psgels with animation here….it’s so crystal clear,just like Hanasaku Iroha.

Short answer is yes. Although the end scene was fairly dramatic and unprobable in a realistic sense. Although she died from suffocation (drowning in her own blood) if anyone did get lacerated like that (especially being impaled in the neck) you would bleed pretty heavily, and it would more than likely be fatal.

Jeez I just realised how grim the topic we are talking about it. So on a lighter note. Yeah gan, i agree, the animation was nice.

I hope it doesn’t go into that formula. Beyond being overly-simplistic, it’s overly gory and somewhat pointless. There’s a big difference between horror and slasher genres, and I think this one has for the most part been the former. IMO, it should stay that way.

So far this series has been really solid. Excellent pacing, atmosphere, animation, music, and characters. Each episode has left me guessing what is going on, and what is going to happen next. Love all the mystery for this series, and now it looks like the horror aspect is going to kick things up a notch.
Definitely looking forward to the next episode for this.

One thing I regard worthy to mention is the colour problem that arose this week.
The shop’s name 夜見のたそがれの・うつろなる蒼き瞳の (Yomi no tasogare no – utsuro naru aoki hitomi no) was translated as “The Hollow Blue Eyes of Yomi at Twilight” but the Japanese aoki is both blue and green.

In the novel when Mei removes her eyepatch among Kouichi’s first thought is “utsuro naru aoki hitomi” – “the hollow blue/green eye”.
Somehow this didn’t make it into the anime, probably because the difference isn’t there in such an instance and Japanese people immediatly make that connection.

Honestly, I was interested at first and I was slightly disappointed with the first episode. Although now that I watched it up to three (well clearly), I’m actually very impressed with how things are going. I hope it’s not like a “Final Destination”-esque anime but I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

Also, I have a question: does this take place in 1998? I know they had a really quick shot of the final exam schedules and all. I was also in Jr High about that time (not in Japan, but in America) and I remember the cellphones being that huge (since my step-dad at the time had one for his insurance business).

Well, I can tell how enthusiastic about a series I get based on how much I think about it when I’m not watching it. I may have been to dismissive about the number of standard plot devices I called out on this ep. I want to know more, and now that I know the Blood team is on the job we’re guaranteed at least a few more deaths (I know I’m an oddball for liking solid body counts).

psgels- I’m happy I stumbled on your blog. You seem to have great tastes in anime and post solid reviews and insight. Also props to the maturity and knowledge of other posters here; I can tell this is an educated crowd. I’ll be sticking around as I unwind with anime as I pursue my legal studies. Congratulations on your community.

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Shoutbox

@Aidan: well I got a newcomer to comment after few weeks of static, so I doubt that the little activity we bring to be the main culprit here.

Bam

(Wednesday, Mar 4. 2015 02:25 AM)

The thing is that a lot of the anticonsumerist stuff from V is also in Watchmen, but Watchmen had a much grander scale and had so much more stuff that actually gelled perfectly. The characters were meant to be unremarkable and flawed since in truth if there really were masked vigilantes then they in fact would be psychos, broken women and rejects who can’t get an erection without putting a cape on.

AidanAK47

(Wednesday, Mar 4. 2015 02:24 AM)

I am*

AidanAK47

(Wednesday, Mar 4. 2015 02:23 AM)

I a beginning to see why no one else but you two guys comment on the shoutbox anymore.

Bam

(Wednesday, Mar 4. 2015 02:20 AM)

@Emma: I completely understand the gripe with the Watchmen style, as I myself am not a fan of the Silver Era Comic look, but after I read a bit into Watchmen I came to appreciate Gibbons greatly as he is remarkable with his attention to detail and symbolisms. There’s a lot of stuff that you’ll only notice a second or third time thru.

AidanAK47

(Wednesday, Mar 4. 2015 02:07 AM)

Hell I stopped writing about seven deadly sins because A: didn’t think anyone cared about it and B: Shounen battle anime are really damn hard to review episode by episode. couple of episodes in you have pretty much said everything you can.
Second one may apply to Durarara here. Really not sure what else I can say about it.

AidanAK47

(Wednesday, Mar 4. 2015 02:02 AM)

I also wrote up a 2014 summery in my spare time. Need to get screenshots and a bit of fine tuning done but I might be able to get that up this week.
And now I really do feel like I have been abandoned. The last time K-Off and Ninja wrote anything was 3 bloody months ago. I feel like a puppy tossed to the side of the road…..or a slasher flick killer pretending to be dead.

AidanAK47

(Wednesday, Mar 4. 2015 01:56 AM)

You guy may have noticed but I am having trouble talking about Durarara. It’s funny. It seems like a lot is happening in that show yet it’s hard to comment on it. Maybe I should have mentioned about the animation studio change. Cause I do think that the art and animation is worse than the first season. Maybe I can bring that up next episode….

Emma

(Wednesday, Mar 4. 2015 01:46 AM)

Its a minor complaint but I never liked David Gibbon’s art and yet another reason why I preferred V for Vendetta was that I felt David Loyd to be the better artist of the two.

Emma

(Wednesday, Mar 4. 2015 01:41 AM)

Scott’s a good director but he has yet to match his older work in terms of films, I love alien, blade runner and black hawk down however.

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